Find an 'Answer' with rockers CYK

"There's a lot more going on than what you're hearing on the radio. So if you get bored of that (stuff) - and I'm sure eventually you will like I did - pick (our album) up, check it out."

- CKY's Jess Margera

Jess Margera is a happy man these days - and not just because he's happily married and the proud father of a 4-month-old daughter.

The drummer for the rock band CKY, Margera is thrilled to be touring America for the first time in two years, this time in support of the band's latest Island Records release, "An Answer Can Be Found," which came out June 28.

He's also happy with the clubs CKY are playing this time around, including the
Webster Theater
in Hartford on Sept. 8 and The Chance in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on Nov. 1.

In fact, Margera - the older brother of skateboard daredevil Bam Margera of the

MTV
series "Jackass" and "Viva La Bam" - even likes the bands slated to open for CKY on this tour.

"Dude, we took
Fireball Ministry
out on our last Europe tour," Margera said in an Aug. 12 interview from San Francisco. "We were so psyched on them that we asked them to come back. They put on a really good show and they're almost like the new
Black Sabbath
in my book. The Knives are really cool too. We've been friends with them forever. They have a cool
Queens Of The Stone Age
-type vibe. I just got their record and I like it a lot."

This says a lot coming from Margera. He and his band mates have kicked openers off tours in the past for whatever reasons they deemed fit. One example was the

"They were (so lame) that we couldn't even handle it," Margera said. "You know how they're all like emo-nerds or whatever? Seriously, it was like hanging out with my little girl cousins. ... We hated them. So we kicked them off the tour. We just said to the All-American Rejects, 'If you come to the next show, we're gonna break all your fingers.'"

Born Aug. 28, 1978, Margera grew up in West Chester, Pa., not too far from Philadelphia. He said growing up in a small college town with a strip of good bars made for a good time. And it was just boring enough that forming a band to keep busy seemed to make sense.

When he was 16, Margera started the metal band Foreign Objects with singer

Deron Miller
. A few years later, the band went into a Philadelphia recording studio, where they met producer-engineer
Chad I. Ginsberg
, who liked the band and soon joined on guitar.

By this time, the band was going under the name CKY, which stands for Camp Kill Yourself. Bam Margera released a series of skateboarding videos titled "CKY." Meanwhile, the first full-length CKY album, "Volume 1," came out independently in 1999.

"We called both the music and the videos CKY because that's all we did," Jess Margera recalled. "I recorded music all night and then filmed all day with those guys. So it made sense to call it CKY because that's what we always did - even though, really, they have nothing to do with each other at all! But it made sense to us because that's all we spent our time doing."

Why Camp Kill Yourself?

"We're really big horror movie fans too," Margera said. "And we always wanted to film a horror movie called 'Camp Kill Yourself' one day if we ever got the money. Who knows? Maybe we'll do it one day."

In the meantime, the Margera brothers excelled at their crafts. Through "Jackass" and "Viva La Bam," MTV viewers became familiar not only with Bam and his friends, but also with his family. Father Phil used to be a baker, while mother April owned a hair salon before taping episodes of "Viva La Bam" became their fulltime jobs, Jess Margera said.

And then there's uncle
Vincent Margera
- better known as the wild-eyed, larger than life Don Vito - the subject of many of Bam's pranks.

"He used to scare the (hell) out of us when we were kids," Jess Margera recalled. "Now we kind of rub it in his face a bit. He was just crazy looking and he always would be like, 'Ahhh!!!' When we were like 4 and 5, that's pretty scary, you know?"

CKY's indy label inked a deal with MCA Records, but the band didn't like the terms.

"We looked for other labels," Margera recalled. "We were gonna sign with Interscope and a couple other ones. And then finally Island came to us with a really good deal and they basically said, 'You can do whatever the hell you want and we won't bother you one bit.' So then we went with them. 'Volume 1' got remastered and put out on Island and then 'I.D.R.' came out the next year - in 2002."

For "Volume 1," CKY took part in the Vans Warped Tour in 1999 and 2000. They also opened for the Deftones. Then, for 2002's "Infiltrate. Destroy. Rebuild." album, they did a lot of headlining. They also opened shows for
Guns N' Roses
and Metallica, whose frontmen -
Axl Rose
and
James Hetfield
, respectively - are fans of CKY.

The highlight of touring life?

"I like sleeping on the bus," Margera said. "I sleep really well on the bus. It's like you're in this little coffin and you're moving, so you just sleep real good and it's really dark. And it's cool going to sleep in one town and waking up in another town. You know, you have no worries. All you have to do is just stumble off the bus and then you're there."

For CKY's current tour, longtime bassist
Vern Zaborowski
has been replaced by ex-All That Remains shredder
Matt Deis
. CKY continues to produce its own music, giving it what Margera considers unique and timeless qualities.

Margera's favorite song to perform from the new album, "An Answer Can Be Found?"

" 'Suddenly Tragic' is a lot of fun and 'Tripled Manic State' too,'" he said. "That one keeps me busy. It's just the craziest riffs we've written in a while. It's kind of Part 2 to that song 'Inhuman Creation Station' off 'Infiltrate.Destroy.Rebuild.' It's kind of like a sequel to that - very similar to how 'Escape From Hellview' is a sequel to '96 Quite Bitter Beings.'

"We kind of like to write stories to our songs and then kind of extend it," he added. "And hopefully we'll start playing 'Sniped' too because I love that song, off the new record. It's really heavy. And I like what the song is about. It's about shooting a sniper before he has the chance to kill anybody - using evil to destroy evil. It's pretty cool."

For the Hartford show, doors open at 7 p.m. The venue is at 31 Webster St. Tickets are $15. Call Tickets.com at (800) 477-6849.

The Poughkeepsie show starts at 6:30 p.m. The venue is a 6 Crannel St. Tickets are $15. Call Ticketmaster at (845) 454-3388.